Seeking Crew - Starting in Pensacola - Traveling East Coast

Jun 10, 2026
3
Tartan Tartan C 1974 Pensacola Port
Hello

Volunteers needed. Possibly Leaving Mid or late June.

Seeking volunteers who are prepared to spend two months to a year to travel on 34’ Tartan (one mass, two sails). Looking for four crew members that will travel with me on the east coast. I plan on doing some water cleanup, water testing, surveying, developing relationships with marinas, and aggregating existing clean water data.

A dinghy that we will be hauling is a 14’ Rigid Hull Zodiac, 63 Horsepower Yamaha Jet Drive, which will be used to survey in shallow waters.

We'll be taking off from Pensacola, Florida, possibly mid to late June. Joe will be driving down from the Bryn Mawr area with the dingy, and there’s room in the van that will be towing the dingy if you are in the Philadelphia area and need a ride down to Florida.

Food is included. There will be time for people to get off the boat and do gigs in different bays for some pocket money. We’ll spend around a couple weeks in each place. Some places we’ll likely travel include but aren’t limited to Miami, Key West, Charleston, Annapolis, Philadelphia. If the crew is up for it, other stops may include the Tortugas and Cuba.

Experience is good but not necessary. Inexperienced will be trained. All are welcome!
Opportunities to learn about non-profit management if you're not already versed in the field.

During the off-season, I can put some people up at my place, attend to boat maintenance, and you can do self-gigging. Possibly do semi-annual checks at the same places we visited before.

Call or text Joe at - 610-520-1153. Feel free to also coorespond on phone or texts and I will also get to your responses shortly. Thanks a bunch!
 

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Jan 19, 2010
12,890
Hobie 16 & Rhodes 22 Skeeter Charleston
This would be a dream. I'm an analytical chemist who teaches environmental chemistry. I would love to do water analysis along the coast. Unfortunately I am not retired yet.:banghead:
 
Jan 19, 2010
12,890
Hobie 16 & Rhodes 22 Skeeter Charleston
…but we should talk. I might be able to help by analyzing some samples for you
 
Sep 25, 2008
7,668
Alden 50 Sarasota, Florida
That’s a pretty extensive area you plan to cover.

What kind of environmental assessment are you planning, chemical, biological, marine life, etc..?

What kinds of data will you be collecting, what data “holes” will this fill in and what use do you envision it will be put?
 
Jun 10, 2026
3
Tartan Tartan C 1974 Pensacola Port
…but we should talk. I might be able to help by analyzing some samples for you
Oh wow, that would be great, though I'm probably not going to be mailing samples. However, Charleston is going to be one of our stops so maybe we can do a handoff there?
 
Jun 10, 2026
3
Tartan Tartan C 1974 Pensacola Port
That’s a pretty extensive area you plan to cover.

What kind of environmental assessment are you planning, chemical, biological, marine life, etc..?

What kinds of data will you be collecting, what data “holes” will this fill in and what use do you envision it will be put?
Going to be using a basic water testing kit. And kind of see what's going on there. But I'd like to coorespond with some experts at marina's along the way. It won't be super intensive, more learning, sharing, and cooresponding. Maybe a focus will come out of that. Similarly, we'll do some trash cleanup, and scan barcodes, but not all the time. We can see where the trash came from. Kind of light data research and lots of information sharing. We wont scan every bar code.
 
Jan 19, 2010
12,890
Hobie 16 & Rhodes 22 Skeeter Charleston
Oh wow, that would be great, though I'm probably not going to be mailing samples. However, Charleston is going to be one of our stops so maybe we can do a handoff there?
Heavy metal analysis of any pluff-mud samples would be trivial for me. If that is something you want, PM me off list and I can talk you through proper sample collection/storing. This spring I am teaching a class on this and I could easily incorporate some of your samples into the lab course. Water analysis is tricky b/c things can change during storage so... storage and quick turn-around is more critical for reliable data.